Sony Sports TV channels at the top of the sports genre for seven consecutive weeks

Sony Sports TV channels have featured at the top of the sports genre viewership for seven consecutive weeks due to the telecast of UEFA EURO 2020, Copa America 2021, India tour of Sri Lanka, Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the ongoing India tour of England. With back-to-back global marquee events on the sports channels for three months, Sony Sports showcased an impressive product mix that catered to a wider range of viewers.

Sony Sports TV channels provides differentiated content to viewers and a conducive platform for its advertising partners. Sony Sports has been consistent in its efforts to establish sports other than cricket and has received consistent support from advertisers through this journey. In the recent weeks, Sony Sports TV channels have been sampled by close to 100 million viewers on average per week. This is considerably higher than any other platform telecasting sports in the country during the same period. (BARC, CS 2+, All India U+R). Advertisers today are cognizant of consumer’s preference in terms of content consumption, language preference and environment. With a view to amplify the reach of sports events and advertiser campaigns, Sony Sports added SONY TEN 4 channels to their offering which ensured that brands were now able to communicate with a wider audience in Tamil and Telugu speaking markets.

UEFA EURO 2020 performed extremely well in terms of TV ratings, with average viewership for the tournament more than double than that of the 2016 edition. Copa America 2021 telecast was also a success on TV, with average viewership impressions for the event growing by almost 60% compared to the 2016 edition. The heavily anticipated final between Argentina and Brazil was watched by 7.4 million viewers, even though the telecast of the match started at 5.30am (BARC, CS 2+, All India U+R).

Sony’s Sports promotion for the Olympic Games started in July 2019 and continued for two years, and they rolled out one of the grandest & buzziest campaigns in the history of the Olympic Games in India – Hum Honge Kamyab. Hum Honge Kamyab, an innovative campaign that not only served the larger cause of growing Sports in India but also celebrated the lesser known, unsung Indian heroes, featured unprecedented faces and never seen before names on TV like Sports minister Anurag Thakur, former Sports Minister, Shri Kiren Rijiju, General Bipin Rawat, Chief of Defence Staff and Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, Mr. N.P. Singh, MD & CEO, Sony Pictures Networks India, Sudha Murthy, Rana Daggubati, Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Yuvraj Singh, Boman Irani, Farhan Akhtar, Sonakshi Sinha , Adille Sumariwala, Arshad Warsi, Pullela Gopichand, Vijender Singh, Anjali Bhagwat, Parth Jindal, Harsha Bhogle, Shankar Mahadevan, Anurag Basu, and many more. This campaign ensured growth in terms of gross impressions, 23% higher than the Rio Olympics, making it the most watched Olympic Games on Indian television and adding a serious value proposition for advertisers. (BARC, All India U+R, CS 2+, Gross impressions for LIVE telecast).

Brands like Thumsup, MPL, JSW & Adani group amongst others utilized their existing association with Olympics and athletes to create specific campaigns around Tokyo Olympics and used the platform to reach out to their target audiences. Contextual elements such as split screen (executed for the first time by any sports broadcaster on an event of this scale) helped brands reach out to captive audiences’ during key moments of the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020. The sports broadcaster also leveraged the power of social media and amplified sponsor associations on Sony Sports social media handles.

The entire coverage of the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020 was watched by close to 100 million viewers on Sony Sports (BARC, CS 2+, All India U+R, LIVE+ non-LIVE content). The record medal tally by the Indian contingent led to high interest to watch the event especially events like Hockey, Athletics, Wrestling, Badminton, Boxing and Weightlifting. The News Strike